


Ride or Die (even when we should probably jump ship)

by CompanyPolicy



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Torture, bc the only characters in this rn are the ocs, i don't know my guys, maybe oc/canon???, might have ships, or at least background ones, others are mentioned but like i don't think that counts, will add more tags as i post chapters, yo i've got no clue how to tag this bc i don't know where it's going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 03:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12267738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CompanyPolicy/pseuds/CompanyPolicy
Summary: Mona Viper just wanted to live her life in goddamn peace.Unfortunately, the world had a habit of going to shit, and Mona herself had the habit of befriending and becoming insufferably loyal to the fools trying to save it.





	Ride or Die (even when we should probably jump ship)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I got the idea for this fic after creating Mona Viper, but I don't really have a plot so I hope y'all're in for a ride because I've got no clue where I'm goin
> 
> Edit: Forgot to mention that The Golden Circle doesn't happen in this 'verse. This fic takes place a few months after V-Day

Mona Viper wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t classify herself as a genius and she couldn’t do math to save her life but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that her friend Eggsy Unwin wasn’t a fucking travelling tailor, no matter how many of those crisp business cards he handed out or how many gorgeous suits he wore.

She also knew not to stick her nose where it didn’t belong.

Eggsy was happy—well and truly happy—for the first time since she’d met him. He’d moved his mom and sister into that absolutely darling house with him. He’d kicked Dean completely out of the picture. He had a job he adored. Mona wasn’t about to go asking questions that would just make Eggsy’s life difficult. He deserved more than that. He deserved a life of doing whatever the hell he wanted, making good money, and not having to worry about his family’s safety. He’d earned that, had suffered and bled for it. She’d be damned if her meager curiosity would be what ended it all for him.

So, she let Eggsy tell his lies about being a travelling tailor even when he came back with broken bones and bruises. Hell, she helped him hide the visible ones with carefully applied makeup so his mom wouldn’t see them. She told him not worry when he had to cancel plans because of some work emergency. She looked after Daisy and JB whenever Eggsy was suddenly called away and Michelle was out of town. She backed up his feebler stories to Michelle, filling in blanks and weaving intricate but infallible lies when needed (Honestly, she didn’t understand how he could craft excellent lies on the fly to anyone but his mother. Being contradictory seemed to be an Eggsy thing). She never questioned any of the bits and pieces he spilled when he was so trashed he couldn’t remember he was on Earth, let alone that she wasn’t technically in on his secret. As long as Eggsy was happy, then she would pretend that she didn’t know a damn thing.

Yes, Mona was quite content to leave well enough alone.

And yet, she still found herself waking from what was definitely a drugged sleep, tied to a chair in a semi-dirty room with no clue as to how she got there. There was only one light in the room, a single bulb dangling above her like the fucking cliché it was. To her right, there was a faucet sticking out of the wall; it, the drain below it, and the camera high above it were the only other objects in the room.

She tried to swallow but her dry throat only made a sympathetic clicking noise. Her mouth tasted like cotton and a rotting sourness. She looked down to see her sock-covered feet. Whoever had kidnapped her had taken her shoes . . . or maybe she had struggled and lost them? She couldn’t remember. At least she was still in her grey tank top and green cargo pants. Her purse was nowhere to be found and she couldn’t feel her phone in her pocket, so her kidnappers must have taken it.

Briefly, she wondered if Eggsy’s coworkers had gotten suspicious about her and decided to take care of a perceived threat, but the idea was quickly discarded. While many of Eggsy’s drunken ramblings had been nonsense, Mona had gotten the clear message that they were the Good Guys. They wouldn’t kidnap a civilian just because they thought there was a threat. No. This was someone else.

But who?

Mona closed her eyes as a headache began to split her head open. She really didn’t want to believe this was happening to her. She was having a hard time convincing herself that it was real. Though, in all honesty? Being kidnapped wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to her. However, it had been a long time since she’d been caught up in something fucked up.

A bitter laugh escaped her. _Maybe I’m just overdue. I always did have the worst luck._

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Mona woozily picked her head up to watch the door open. Several men entered the door, all of them looking like variously shaped thugs. The last man looked more polished or at least like he was in charge. He looked like he would be the second choice to play Count Dracula in a small-town production of the play. His black hair was slicked back and impossibly shiny, his mustache and beard thick and trimmed neatly, and his dark suit fit him well but his facial features just missed the whole “handsome” thing.

The other men spread throughout the room, unnecessarily surrounding Mona. Dracula sidled up in front of her. He smiled kindly but pretentiously down at her, like she was a misbehaving child that he had to discipline, and held his hands behind his back.

“Good morning, or, more accurately, good afternoon. You’ve been sleeping for some time,” Dracula said. He had a French accent. Mona couldn’t help thinking about how it clashed with his appearance. “It’s truly a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Mona Viper.”

Mona blinked slowly up at the man. She licked her chapped lips. “You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know who you are.” Her usually light, southern American accent was thickened by her still partially drugged mind.

His smile widened. “I apologize. I’ve forgotten my manners. I am François Gaume.” He looked at her expectantly.

She blinked again. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gaume. May I ask why I’m here?”

Gaume didn’t even twitch when she didn’t seem to recognize him. “You’re here, Miss Viper, because my people have noticed a friend of yours, a Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin, and other individuals that we believe to be his associates around the premises of my businesses. Given that they aren’t authorized personnel, I’m sure you can understand why I’m rightfully upset about their presences.”

Mona had no fucking clue what he was talking about. Well, okay, she could infer what was going on by his words and what she knew about Eggsy’s job, and if Eggsy and his coworkers were the Good Guys, then this guy was a Bad Guy. Gaume had been under surveillance or something by Kingsman Tailors; he’d spotted Eggsy and some other people; and then he’d decided to figure out who was about to fuck up his criminal activity. That didn’t explain why _she_ was here.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Eggsy’s a tailor.”

Gaume’s smile turned predatory. He tutted. “Now, Miss Viper—can I call you Mona? I’d like to call you Mona, since we’re going to become such good friends soon—Now, Mona, we both know that’s not true. Surely a tailor wouldn’t return home with broken bones and bruises? It’s all right, you can admit it to me.”

Mona was shaking her head before he finished talking. “Nah, Eggsy’s a tailor. He makes suits for those high cotton folks around the world. I’ve met some people like that. They get real mad when stuff doesn’t go their way, so I’m not surprised he comes back lookin’ like he got tossed around. Hell, they probably got their bodyguards to do it for ‘em.”

Gaume’s expression tensed for the briefest second before relaxing. He shook his head as if he were amused by her explanation. “Do you know why you’re here, Mona?”

She did. “No,” she said, making sure that she projected the right amount of innocence and fear.

“You see, I thought about having the mother and little girl brought here,” Gaume said, his delight at Mona’s shock clear, “but they most likely would have had too much security. A friend though, one’s friends are rarely as carefully watched as one’s family.” He leaned down to hover close to Mona’s face. “So, are you going to tell me who Eggsy works for, or do I have to resort to . . . unseemly measures?”

Mona’s breath left her in one quick movement. She attempted to get it back but each intake seemed to rattle her more than the last.

“Nothing too uncouth, of course. It would be a shame to harm such a beautiful face,” Gaume said, reaching out with one hand to trace her cheekbone and jaw with the backs of his fingers.

Grimacing, Mona tried to jerk back but settled to rolling her head weakly away.

Gaume chuckled and gripped her jaw in a firm but not bruising grip. “I need a verbal answer, Mona. I have many talents and skills, but mindreading is not one of them.”

“Eggsy is a tailor,” she replied immediately, her voice low but firm as she looked Gaume in the eye. It may have been years since she’d been a situation like this, but Mona was born with grit in her gut and blood in her teeth. Gaume may have been her captor but he was just a man. She could survive this.

Gaume tutted again. “Such a pity. Perhaps you just need some convincing.”

Without being prompted, one of the guards closest to the door opened it. Another guard entered with two buckets and a length of cloth in his hands. He walked over to the faucet and began filling the buckets. One glance from Gaume and another guard moved to stand behind Mona and tilt the chair backwards.

Her lungs were already clenching desperately. She was on the verge of a panic attack or a full-on breakdown, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that. Not right now. She watched the buckets fill with wide eyes and fought to control her breathing.

_Get it together, Mona._

The buckets were full. Another man took the cloth and brought it down over her face.

_And don’t give in._

She managed to take a deep breath before they started pouring the water.

Of course, they noticed that she’d tried to hold her breath. She was punched beneath her rib cage. And then she was choking on water and the air leaving her lungs. The wet fabric clung to her nose and mouth. The cloth had been simply rough when dry but now it clogged her airway. Through the violent seizing of her lungs, Mona couldn’t tell if she was inhaling or exhaling. Her throat and lungs burned. Was the water going in or out? It didn’t matter. Not really. It was all pain and suffocation that blended together unendingly. Time had no meaning. Her world was the water, the unreachable air, and her own collapsing lungs. Her chest felt ready to burst when the water finally stopped. The cloth was pulled away roughly; her cheeks and nose stung and burned from the action. Mona coughed and wheezed, desperately trying to get air into her lungs and water out. She felt the scraping burn—as if her entire trachea had been rubbed with sandpaper—all the way into her lungs. She didn’t want to open her eyes but wasn’t given a choice. The chair was released and it clattered back into its four legs. A hand fisted Mona’s hair and tugged her head backwards.

“You’ll look at Mr. Gaume.”

Still wheezing, Mona forced her eyes open. She squinted against the single bulb’s light that now seemed impossibly bright. She looked at Gaume.

The bastard looked like he hadn’t even moved, though Mona knew he’d had to because his suit was bone dry.

“Well, Mona? What does Eggsy do for a living?” he asked, his smile soft and kind.

Mona swallowed thickly. The action made her throat throb. She breathed heavily and harshly enough to steady herself for the marathon ahead. _Get it together, Mona._ She tilted her head and answered, voice rough and wet, “He’s a tailor.” _And don’t panic this time._

Gaume’s smile became tense. He looked at the men behind her and nodded.

The cloth was back over her face and the chair tilted back before she could close her eyes.

And it started again.

* * *

 After they finished with her the first day, Gaume ordered his goons to dump her in a room that looked almost identical to the first, except the faucet and camera were replaced with a mattress on the floor—which they unceremoniously dumped her on—and a toilet in the far corner. The heavy door was then locked, and she was left in darkness. That became her routine. She was retrieved after hours of either sleep or no sleep (depending on if her mind would let her rest), dragged back to the first room, asked the same questions—“What does Eggsy do for a living?”, “Who are his coworkers?”, “Where do they operate from?”, and “What do they know about Mr. Gaume’s business?”—to which she responded the same way—“He’s a tailor”, “I don’t know”, and, eventually, just silence—and they waterboarded her until she passed out or close to it. They would then drag her back to the second room. Sometimes they fed her and sometimes they didn’t.

She became bitterly thankful for her clinical depression; it gave her experience in not eating for days and blocking out unpleasant experiences. She was surprised she wasn’t continuously dissociating. Some days she did, but others she was disgustingly present.

During the long hours that she was left alone, she thought. And she hated that, hated not having something to occupy herself with besides her own thoughts. Her meds hadn’t left her system yet and wouldn’t for at least thirty days but that could pass sooner rather than later. So, she wrangled her mind into submission. She shoved dark thoughts off steep cliffs and zeroed in on others. She repeated who she was continuously—her name, her age, her job, her address. She looked at the scars on her body and recounted how she got them in as much detail as she could manage. She went over her latest art projects and publications, reciting building techniques and plots until her head spun. She wondered if anyone had noticed her absence, which wasn’t very likely. Her parents had killed each other during V-Day, and before then, she hadn’t spoken to or seen them in years. She wasn’t in a relationship. Most of her friends were in different countries, and they were used to going long periods of time without hearing from her. Eggsy had been gone for two days on another job when she’d been taken. She wasn’t very close to Jamal and Ryan; Eggsy was the lynchpin that held her to them. Her neighbor, the elderly widow, Mrs. Nayar, would probably be the first to notice her disappearance. Mrs. Nayar would notice the absence of music playing at all hours, and Mona’s cats—Oh, her poor cats! Her babies!

A strangled whine escaped Mona’s throat. Pixel and Tim were used to her oddly-timed business trips, but she had a routine she went through if she would be gone for several days. She always left them at Mrs. Nayar’s with all their toys. She always called to FaceTime them. God, the poor things must’ve been distraught. They’d gotten her through the most suicidal parts of her life and somehow knew she needed more care than the average human. Mona hoped Mrs. Nayar would take care of them if she couldn’t get back home.

On the other hand, if she did manage to get home, the fluffy beasts wouldn’t leave her side for weeks, even if she just needed to go to the corner store that was five minutes from her apartment.

“At least they’re leash trained,” Mona muttered deliriously, staring up at the concrete ceiling.

* * *

 “You’re awfully stubborn, Mona. Maybe I should go back for the mother and little girl, like I had initially planned?” Gaume questioned her aloofly. “Or perhaps someone you know has the information I’m looking for? Someone Mr. Unwin doesn’t know about. Maybe you told them, and they’ll answer my questions.” He watched her face for any sign his threats got under her skin.

Mona stared at him blankly. Michelle and Daisy were well monitored and protected by Kingsman; Gaume wouldn’t be able to get to them, and he knew that. What he didn’t know was that he wouldn’t find Mona’s friends, let alone attempt to extort them for information. They were like Mona—loyal and vicious with a bite far worse than their bark. She hadn’t told anyone her suspicions about Eggsy’s job, but even if she had, none of her friends would say anything. They’d take her secrets to Hell with them, spitting blood and grinning the whole way.

The corner of Mona’s mouth twitched into a smirk. If Gaume did get it in his head to go after them, then he’d be in for a rude awakening . . .

Because Mona was the nicest of them all, and she was one mean motherfucker.

* * *

 A few sessions later, Mona knelt in front of the toilet in her dark room, vomiting up all the water she’d swallowed during that day’s session.

Gaume was getting impatient.

* * *

 "Wake up, bitch!” someone snarled.

Mona lurched, spitting up water as she went, and managed to curl up on her side. She vomited water until she felt like a wet cloth that had been wrung out.

She barely noticed that she wasn’t in the chair. She was on the floor.

The guards surrounded her. A cold jolt of fear went through her. Had Gaume changed his mind?

“Get up,” the same voice snarled. One of the men grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the chair. “We aren’t finished.”

The man maneuvered her easily. Her body was just a ragdoll to be thrown around at this point. Her ribs ached from the outside this time, like they’d had pressure put on them.

 _Oh_ , Mona realized as she stared up at the single bulb. _So, that’s what happened._ She’d blacked out during the session. The guard had performed CPR on her.

She wanted to laugh but didn’t have the energy to. _Definitely aren’t done._

* * *

 

Mona’s head hung limply against her chest. She was still tied to the chair. Gaume was standing in front of her, dressed in a grey suit this time. He was frowning. She wanted to mock him about how she’d noticed his nostrils flaring but just the thought made her exhausted. She didn’t know what session number they were on. She’d stopped counting after the time she’d nearly drowned. Time didn’t matter here anyway.

She used to like the clammy feeling that overtook her skin after spending too long in wet clothes. Now . . . now, she just wanted to be dry and warm for longer than a few hours.

* * *

 

Mona woke up with a gasp, lurching off the grungy mattress onto the cold floor. She gagged and dry-heaved for several minutes. Foamy stomach acid crawled up to the back of her throat, but there was nothing for her to vomit. Eventually, she calmed herself enough to curl up on the floor. She laid there and simply breathed until the guards came to drown her again.

* * *

 “Mona,” Gaume said tensely.

Mona managed to lift her head and prop it up against the chair’s back. She was suddenly struck by how glad she was that she’d gotten the surgery to correct her eyesight because if she hadn’t, then she would’ve had to deal with either wearing her contacts continuously or discarding them and being legally blind.

“Mona,” Gaume repeated.

Oh, damn, she’d drifted off.

“You’ve been a very rude guest, Mona,” Gaume said. He refused to drop the “nice” act even after all this time. It pissed Mona off. She wanted to stab him through the eye or slice his throat open. “Perhaps you simply need a different type of persuasion.”

 _Fuck, he’s changed his mind_. She hoped he wouldn’t let that slimy fucker Delon be the first to rape her. He’d been eyeing and threatening her since the first session.

“Marchand, hold her steady. Sardou, persuade her.”

Hands gripped her shoulders. Another man, Sardou, stepped forward but he didn’t go for his belt buckle.

Instead, he reared back his fist and hit Mona right in the face.

Mona’s head jerked back from the impact, colliding with the immobile chest behind her. She gasped as the deep-set pain throbbed at its center and stung at the edges.

“Are you ready to talk, Mona?”

She gritted her teeth briefly, sucked in a deep breath, and shook her head.

“Again, Sardou.”

Another punch, this time to the other side of her face.

“Are you ready to talk?”

She shook her head.

“Again.”

By the end, Mona knew her nose was broken and both of her eyes would be varying shades of black. There was blood in her mouth from her teeth cutting into the sides of her mouth and biting down on her tongue. At least one rib was cracked, though she suspected more.

“Are you ready to talk?”

She shook her head weakly.

Gaume sighed. “I had hoped to avoid this, but you’ve left me with no choice. Sardou, what we talked about please.”

Mona didn’t understand until Sardou took a pair of plyers out of his jacket pocket and grabbed her left hand. She inhaled sharply and tried not to scream as he began pulling her fingernails out one by one.

She failed.

After each nail was pulled, Sardou would pause. Gaume would ask his question. Mona’s response was always the same. And then it would repeat.

When the nails on her left hand were gone, she expected them to immediately move on to her right hand, but instead, Gaume ordered Sardou to stop and Marchand to release her. When Marchand went to untie, Gaume stopped him.

“Leave her. We’ll take a short break and then continue. Now that Mona knows what extent I’m willing to go to, perhaps she’ll answer my questions. Escort me to my office. The rest of you, to your posts,” Gaume ordered.

He then exited the room. The guards followed without question.

Mona sat there, gasping raggedly, until she heard the door lock. Then, she ran her tongue along her busted lip and got to work. She had to escape now. This was the first time she’d been left alone except when she was placed in the dark room. And now that Gaume had decided that using force would get him results, she couldn’t wait for a better opportunity.

However, she was lucky on one front—they hadn’t changed the ropes since the first session. All her struggling since that first day had weakened the ropes and especially the sections that tied together. All she had to do was loosen one side and she would untie herself and then . . . and then, she’d just fucking wing it.

Hopefully no one was watching the camera feed.

She almost had her right hand free. Just one more tug and her knuckles could slide under the rope . . .

The door opened.

Mona stilled, letting herself go limp. Had they seen her struggling? Surely, they weren’t watching the camera too closely, especially after all this time of nothing changing. And with such a short time since Gaume’s departure, the guards should’ve still been returning to their posts.

Delon entered the room. The skeletal man’s hair was still pulled back in the greasy rattail it had been in the first day. His clothes were still ill-fitting. He was still wearing the gun holster across his chest and the knife sheath at his hip.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have to wing her escape quite so much.

“Hello there, my dear,” Delon said slyly, just like so many times before. He closed the door and sidled up in front of Mona just like before. A familiar, slimy smile split his face. “The boss is getting awfully frustrated. Maybe today will be the day, hm?” he asked, just like before.

Mona made a show of being weak. She tugged at her bonds and leaned further back in her chair. She allowed her lower jaw to quiver until her teeth chattered faintly. She stared resolutely at a corner to her right, slightly baring her throat as if on accident. Her frayed and fractured state of mind only helps sell the act.

Delon took the bait. He moved to stand between her legs and leaned in close enough so that his disgusting breath could fan over her face and ear. “It’s such a shame, isn’t it? That they had to hurt your pretty face. I wanted you to be all pretty when I spread your legs.”

His arm blocked her access to his gun but the knife was within reach.

“Yes,” Mona rasped. Delon pulled away slightly in shock at hearing her speak. “It is a shame.” She turned to sneer at him. “But what I’m gonna do to you is worse.”

Delon opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to say anything. Mona spat a mixture of blood and saliva into his eyes, and he lurched backwards. He didn’t get far before Mona jerked her hand from beneath the rope, grabbed his knife, and viciously forced it through his jugular and throat.

Hot blood immediately gushed from the gaping wound. Mona was soaked in arterial spray from her arm to her face and down her front. Some pumped onto her legs and sluggishly dripped down her calves to soak into her socks when Delon’s body began running out of blood. Mona continued to stare him in the eyes as he died with a gurgle.

When the body slumped over—heavy, glassy-eyed, and lazily dripping blood—Mona used her grip on the knife to shove it away from her. The knife slid free of his throat with a wet, almost suction-like sound, and the body collapsed in a pile on the floor.

Mona wasted no time in cutting herself free. She then knelt beside the body and cut the jacket from it to get to the gun holster. She took the holster, making sure that the gun was indeed loaded before adjusting it to her own body. Her fingers slipped several times from both nerves and the mixture of old and new blood on her hands. She tried not to jostle her left hand too much. The wounds were still lightly bleeding, and she knew from experience that her nail beds would be painfully sensitive for at least a day or two; however, not using her hand wasn’t an option, so she would just have to limit how much pain she’d have to deal with.

She clipped the knife sheath to her belt and holstered the knife after wiping it on the body’s jeans. She hadn’t shot a gun in a few years and she’d need both hands to steady the pistol, especially in her sorry state. She debated taking Delon’s shoes but decided against it. She’d rather be in just her filthy socks than tempt fate with whatever lurked in his footwear.

Mona stood slowly, more conscious of the torture she’d gone through than ever. Her entire body ached from several days of abuse. Even standing slowly only just stopped a dizzy spell. Her hands were shaking so she tensed her muscles to force the shakes out of her muscles. She took a deep breath and stared at the door. She could wait for someone to come looking for Delon or she could take her chances and leave. She glanced at the camera. Every second passing meant that someone could see into the room, if they hadn’t already. She had to take the chance.

She licked her lips, tasting blood that could’ve been hers or Delon’s, and approached the door. She took another deep breath— _It’s just like Chile. All that’s changed is you’re on your own—_ and eased the door open. The room was at the end of a corridor, so she didn’t have to worry about looking left or right for guards. Instead, there was only one guard at the end of the hall with his back to her.

Mona eyed him. He wasn’t that tall. She could just use the knife. The pistol would be loud and it wouldn’t do to waste bullets on an easy target.

She holstered the gun, took the knife in hand, and silently crept forward. Once behind the guard, she stood, covered his mouth and nose with her left hand, and reached around with the knife to slit his throat before he could struggle. She released the still-bleeding body with a hiss, cradling her aching hand to her chest. The body collapsed with a heavy sound, spurting blood the entire time. Baring her teeth down at the body, she kneeled to take his pistols. She shoved them into the back of her pants, stole their corresponding clips to put in her pockets after placing the knife on the ground, and waited for her hand to stop stinging as badly.

 _Two down_ , she thought. _Several dozen more to go_. She only had a rough idea of how many guards there were in the building. There were at least twenty; Gaume made it very clear that he and his “business” were very important and dangerous. No way would he have less than twenty people in the building with him, even if she was the only outsider for miles.

Mona sheathed the knife after cleaning it on the newest dead body’s jacket. She took out the first pistol and readied it. There was a camera around the corner, and she was willing to bet a lot that it had caught her killing the man. She had to go on the assumption that someone had seen her.

 _Just like Chile_ , she thought again. She gathered her resolve and moved down the hallway as quickly and quietly as she could.

There were two guards around the next corner. Mona shot one twice in the chest before she was spotted and the other three times as he turned to her. She took the extra clips and slid them into her pockets. She slid around another corner just in time to nearly get shot in the head by another guard. The bullet skimmed her shoulder, but she didn’t acknowledge the pain. Instead, she ducked down, shot the man in the leg, and then shot him in the head as his leg gave out.

 _For a supposedly very dangerous man in a very dangerous business, his guards aren’t very well armed or trained_ , Mona thought, just as a guard with a submachine came barreling at her from the end of the hallway. She scrambled back around the corner to avoid the godawful aiming. She waited for a break in his fire before peaking from her hiding spot and shooting four times, putting two bullets in his chest and one in his shoulder. The guard collapsed with a shout; he dropped the gun and attempted to cover the wounds, but Mona was already darting towards him and firing again. He dropped, and she picked up the submachine gun—and fired when she same movement at the end of the hall. Three other guards collapsed in a pile.

With only faintly shaking hands, Mona placed all the pistol clips into her left pockets and the newly acquired ones for the submarine gun into those on right. Sweat made the two pistols in her waistband stick uncomfortably to her skin. When she stood this time, it was too quickly, and the familiar darkness of tunnel vision almost caused her to black out. She came to almost a full minute later, leaning against the wall, lightheaded, and woozy. She swallowed thickly and forced herself to wait for it to pass before moving on.

And on she went. Mona was pretty sure that at some point she fell into that space between conscious thought and dissociation because she didn’t remember going through the halls. She didn’t remember falling into a rhythm of shooting anyone that got in her way and reloading when the bullets ran out. She had gotten shot at some point—not once, but _twice_ —and couldn’t remember when it happened. She hadn’t felt the pain.

She came back to herself when a guard stabbed her.

She didn’t think it was too bad—she swore she felt the blade hit a rib on the way in so it couldn’t have gotten anything important—but the knife stayed where it was until she got her hand around the handle, pulled it out, and stabbed the man, who’d been stupid enough to think getting stabbed would stop her, in the eye.

As he dropped, another dizzy spell—at least the eighth one since the first—forced Mona to lean against the wall. A wave of nausea threatened to make her knees give out. At first, she thought it was just standard nausea that would go nowhere, but then saliva was flooding her mouth and she was rapidly bending over and vomiting and hoping it was far enough away so that it wouldn’t soak into her socks or splatter all over her pants because goddammit hadn’t she fucking suffered enough to not have to walk around covered in her own vomit—

God, she wanted to have a breakdown more at that point than ever before in her goddamn _life_.

But she didn’t. Couldn’t. There were still people to kill. She wasn’t free. She had to keep fighting, had to keep going. She couldn’t stop and have a crying fit yet. She was already wasting precious time by standing there and throwing up the pathetic contents of her stomach (only water and stomach acid).

—Mona spat once, twice. She forced down the tears prickling at her eyes and just breathed. She had to calm down. She’d driven while having a full force, sobbing breakdown before but she doubted she’d be able to aim properly if she didn’t get herself together.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she stepped away from the wall. Her knees wobbled before she steadied herself. She placed her right hand over the stab wound and, even though she knew she shouldn’t, dug her finger into the hole. She hissed at the pain but got the result she wanted. Her head immediately felt clearer, sharper. She could focus again.

She retrieved the pistol she had dropped when she’d stabbed the last man. The submachine gun had jammed at some point, and she hadn’t had the opportunity to grab another. She only had two clips for the pistol and the knife sheathed at her hip. She either needed to escape the building or find more weapons somehow. She would settle for a fucking window at this point. But she hadn’t seen a window. At all. The building completely lacked windows and was lit only by florescent lights that made Mona’s head pound.

So, weapons it was.

Mona allowed herself to move through the suspiciously empty hallways. She’d spent the last several minutes shooting her way through anything that moved. Had she killed all the guards? No. No, that was too easy. There had to be more. Mona’s gut told her she was being watched from the cameras and her gut was rarely wrong. There were more guards but they were biding their time. That meant Mona could only keep her guard up as she moved through the building.

She didn’t have to wait long.

A canister rolled down one hall, hit the wall, and continued rolling towards her. Mona didn’t wait for something to happen; she started running in the opposite direction, only to be cut off by another canister. She scrambled backwards and, with no other option, began testing doors. After two doors, she heard a hissing sound. Her head snapped to the first canister and nearly choked. She lunged for another door.

The canisters weren’t explosives. They were gas grenades.

She tugged her tank top over her nose and mouth as she went through the next few doors. It wouldn’t do much good—women’s tank tops were designed to be thin and layered not practical, after all. Gas was already filling the hallway. She held her breath and tried not to cry or panic.

 _I’m not going back to that room. I’ll kill myself first_.

“Please, please, please,” she begged no one . . . or maybe she was begging the many gods she’d gone through over the years in her desperate attempt to put meaning to _every-goddamn-thing_. She shouldn’t have spoken, she knew that. She was wasting air, but she was already lightheaded; tears were spilling over her cheeks because the gas burned her eyes; and there was only one last door to try, and if it was locked, too, then she’d put the pistol to her head and blow her brains out because she _wasn’t going back to that room_ —

The door lever went down on the first push. Mona stood there for a second just staring at the lever. But then she took a shallow breath, tasted the gas, hurried inside the room, and fumbled with the lock. After locking the door, she slumped against it. The cold metal felt good against her overheated body. She took several deep breaths until she felt like she wouldn’t pass out and finally turned around. She had meant to slump to the ground so she could rest a bit (though she also feared she wouldn’t get up again if she did) but froze in place when she saw the room’s contents.

Rows of submachine guns, pistols, shotguns, ammunition, and grenades of all sorts filled the small room.

 _So, that’s why they didn’t use regular grenades_ , she thought. Gaume didn’t want to take the risk of setting off the other explosives and bringing the entire building down.

She, however, had fewer reservations. After all, if the building collapsed, she’d at least get the satisfaction of killing Gaume along with herself.

With enemies manning both sides of the hallway, Mona couldn’t let herself hole up in the artillery room. She pushed herself off the door and methodically inspected the weapons. She switched out her stolen holsters for bulkier ones with more storage and began loading herself with as many weapons as she could without weighing herself down. She was buckling a grenade belt around her hips when she saw the line of gas masks nearly hidden behind the shotguns. With a vicious smile that was more teeth than anything, she pulled one of them over her face, took two concussive grenades in hand, and walked back to the door. The grenades were almost uncomfortably familiar in her palm. She knew the model well. Deathstick had taught her how to use them in Chile. He’s also taught her how to hold them for three seconds so that enemies in close quarters wouldn’t be able to find cover before the timer ran out. He’d taught her a lot she wished she hadn’t had to know. She still hated that bastard with a fiery passion, even after nearly eight years of not seeing hide nor hair of him. She hoped he remembered her every time someone kicked him in the gut or called him a narcissistic dickweed.

She pressed her ear to the door. Voices were steadily growing closer. She would send the first grenade to her left since the door opened to the right and could provide cover from gunfire. She waited another second. Then, she pulled both pins, counted to three, and opened the door. The grenades rolled easily, and she was slamming the door shut and locking it with only one extra bullet in her left shoulder for the effort.

Shouts and scuffling filled the hallway but didn’t last long. The grenades went off not two seconds after she rolled them towards the guards. Mona released the breath she’d been holding, checked her gear, and opened the door with a submachine gun in hand. The left hallway was filled with gas, bodies, parts of bodies, and rubble that the blast had knocked from the building; the right side mirrored it.

Mona took the right hallway. It was the way she’d been originally headed anyway.

Apparently, after the grenades, Gaume had decided that he needed to step his game up because Mona met more and more enemies as she went. Currently, she was stuck behind the cover of a corner as a group of guards tore the concrete apart with hail after hail of bullets.

Sighing heavily, Mona entertained the idea of trying a different route. _I could go back the way I came and turn down that left corridor with the water stain or_ —

Some of the gunfire stopped. Mona paused, feet already turned to head down the hall. She listened intently to the French curses (they could only be curses with how they were being spat and snarled) the guards were using. She grinned. So, it wasn’t just her submachine gun that had jammed. Theirs were doing the exact same thing.

She waited until all the gunfire stopped and chucked a readied grenade around the corner. The explosion and screams just made her grin wider behind her gasmask.

Mona abandoned all pretense of sneaking. There really wasn’t a point anymore, not with the cameras becoming more numerous the deeper—and she had to be going deeper, no way was she heading towards the entrance at this point—into the building she went. She didn’t care. She hoped Gaume was watching her bulldoze her way through his people and knew she was coming for him.

She dashed through the hallways, shooting and dodging on instinct like Deathstick had taught her in Chile. (She was glad Deathstick wasn’t there to see her using the moves she’d picked up from him. She would never hear the end of it). Predictably, her newest submachine gun jammed before she got through all its clips. She smashed it into the closest guard’s skull, shoved her knife between his ribs, and used his body as a shield until she could pull a pistol and shoot the other two—

Her feet were fucking freezing, though there was nothing to be done about it. She’d stopped to remove her socks because they’d become soaked and slippery with blood. There’d been no avoiding the large blood pools, especially when she’d used the grenades. She’d stuffed the ruined socks in her back pocket. For some reason, she couldn’t stomach the idea of abandoning them.

—She switched the pistol for the pump-action shotgun that hung at her hip from the strap across her chest. She’d made sure to load it before leaving the artillery room. Two large pouches containing as many shotgun shells as she could fit in them hung from another belt underneath the grenade belt. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use all of them but she would rather be prepared.

Five hallways later and Mona wanted to kill whoever designed this fucking building. Where was the end?! She was just wanted to fucking leave for Christ’s sake! Maybe she was just going in circles, though she’d only come across dead guards once or twice.

 _And it’s not like I can ask for directions_ , she thought, giggling deliriously at her own joke while blowing a hole in a guard’s chest.

The guards’ numbers had become thinner and thinner. She now saw one or two every so often rather than three or four around every corner. Either she had killed most of them or they were hiding from her. While she knew the former was more likely, the latter made her warm and fuzzy inside so she focused on it.

The hallways were changing, too. They gradually became cleaner, more polished, and generally looked they were used on a regular basis rather than abandoned. The concrete abruptly gave way to off-white tile. Her bloody footprints were even more noticeable than they were on the stained concrete. Mona decided that she liked it.

Mona’s eyes darted to the doors lining each side of the hall, her heavy breath fogging up the gasmask. She adjusted her sweating hands on the shotgun and fought down the anxiety threatening to twist her gut into knots. Someone was in one of the rooms, she just knew it.

She paused halfway down the hall. She would wait them out if she had to. Though, she doubted that any of Gaume’s employees were particularly patient. They wouldn’t leave her waiting for long.

She was proven right when, after only three long minutes of waiting, a door at the very end of the hall suddenly flung open and a man charged out, gun already firing. Mona darted to the right and forward while ducking. Bullets rained concrete dust and grit down on her as the guard followed her movement. She dropped to the floor in a kneeling slide. The movement surprised the guard and gave her the opportunity to blow a hole in his gut. He stumbled backwards with a shout and tried to catch himself on the doorframe, but Mona was already on her feet and shooting him in the chest. She watched the guard die, her entire body tense and ready. When silence rather than gunfire overtook the ringing in her ears, she relaxed and looked up from the body.

Her mouth dropped open. _The surveillance room._ The room was large and filled with several dozen monitors above a large desk that was most likely manned by several guards under normal circumstances, given the multiple chairs that were in disarray around the room. Mona entered the room and shut the door behind her. Shotgun hanging at her side, she approached the monitors and scanned them. Nearly all of them showed empty hallways or dead bodies, but two showed what appeared to be the last group of Gaume’s men guarding a room. Inside the room was Gaume himself, pacing frantically and switching between tearing at his hair or biting his nails. He didn’t appear to be armed.

Sardou was giving orders to the remaining guards outside the room in sharp French. Mona laughed—a high pitched, manic thing that normally signaled a manic breakdown—when she finally processed what he was saying.

“ _She’s just one fucking girl! Any of you could kill her in your sleep! Are you men or cowards?!_ ”

“ _She tore through everyone else, Sardou!_ ” a guard shouted back. Mona could see his gun shaking his hands. “ _She killed them! All of them!_ ”

“ _Well, she’s not getting through us! You hear me, you fucking cunts?! She isn’t getting to the boss!_ ” Sardou barked back, roughly shaking the man by his shoulder.

Mona liked to think that she heard his voice falter on the words but that was probably just her imagination.

Sardou pulled a bulky walkie talkie from his belt. “ _Where is she now, Paquin?_ ”

Mona startled when she heard the voice inside the room. She jerked around, eyes frantically searching for an intruder.

“ _Paquin, do you copy? Paquin, answer me!_ ”

She looked down at the dead guard. On his belt was another walkie talkie. As Sardou continued to demand that Paquin answer him, Mona thought about picking the radio up and responding in Paquin’s place. Instead, she stepped over the body and continued down the hallway. She was too tired for dramatics.

She returned to sneaking. There was no one manning the cameras, so the guards would only have their own senses to go on. She already had a plan—well, okay, most probably wouldn’t call it much of a plan. She would use one of the last three grenades on her belt in the same manner as before to kill the guards. She would get into Gaume’s room. She would kill him. She would find a way to get home to her cats. She would lie to Mrs. Nayar, Eggsy, and anyone else who noticed her disappearance. She would lie to the police, her therapist, and any doctors involved if it came to it. And . . . and then she would sleep for as long as she fucking wanted, and anyone who objected could go fuck themselves because Mona was so fucking _done_ with the shitfest that was her life.

“ _Shut up!_ ”

Mona paused at a corner. Sardou was hissing rapid orders to his men. They hadn’t heard her approach. She took a grenade from her belt and rolled it almost mournfully in her palm before activating it, counting to three, and then sending it down the hall. She didn’t let the shouts and screams deter her as she took out another grenade, primed it, and sent it after the first. She wanted to be thorough. (That and now that her mind knew she was almost in the clear, her body was starting to falter. Panting and leaning heavily on the wall for support as she was, she almost doubted she’d be able to drag herself into Gaume’s office to kill him).

She staggered around the corner, grimacing when the top of her right thigh throbbed painfully. _Oh, yeah, I got shot there,_ she thought as the wound in question stung with every movement. The one on her side decided it was also time to start burning—Oh, shit, was she still bleeding? She hadn’t even checked when she first got shot. She had just kind of glanced at the wounds (what she could see of them since she had already been coated in blood) and moved on.

 _Deal with them later. Only Gaume’s left. Come on, you can make it_. She repeated the mantra over and over to herself. It was just like anything else, if she repeated it enough times, it would become real.

The door had a scanner lock. Mona looked around at the mangled dead men in the hall. Spotting Sardou, she stepped over to his corpse (She nearly slipped in a pool of blood and mangled flesh three times. Something squished between her toes, and Mona couldn’t contain her soft sound of revulsion). She knelt and examined his right arm; she grimaced when she saw it was still attached to his torso. Letting her shotgun hang from its strap, she took out her knife and started cutting. The grinding of her knife against the wrists bones set her on edge and the bones popping out of place made her stomach turn, but she didn’t stop. Several minutes later, she finally managed to remove the hand. She grimaced at the hack job it obviously was. It reminded her of the first time she broke down a chicken herself, all uneven cuts and sloppily disconnected bones.

Oh well, it didn’t have to be pretty; it just had to work.

She cleaned and sheathed the knife before standing and walking to the door. She held a pistol in her left hand just in case Gaume had armed himself since she’d seen him on the monitors. Then, she pressed Sardou’s rapidly cooling hand to the scanner. The scanner took several seconds to process the handprint, long enough that Mona was starting to grow irritated by the time the light finally flipped from red to green. Mona dropped the hand. Adjusting her grip on the pistol, she swung open the door and stepped inside.

“Sardou—” Gaume made a choking sound at the sight of her.

Mona delighted in the fear that spread across Gaume’s face. The sheer terror that leaked from him as he scrambled back against the walls of his office made her giddy. The sudden rush made her rethink her earlier disregard for dramatics. Using her right hand, she pulled the gasmask off and carelessly let it fall to the floor. The clatter echoed in the room. Her wild grin widened when Gaume flinched violently at the sound.

Soft giggles bubbled up in her chest and spilled over her lips like foam. “Hello, Mr. Gaume,” she greeted delightedly. She attempted a mocking smile but knew it came out more shark-like than anything. “I apologize for barging in like this. I understand that it’s very rude of me to do so; however, I have a few complaints about your treatment of guests in your establishment. Of course, I’m sure you already know that.” Gaume didn’t say anything. He continued trying to shove his quivering body into the wall. Mona gave him a very put-upon pout. “Ignoring a guest? That’s a surprising misstep in manners, Mr. Gaume. It’s very out of character. Are you all right? Should I call someone to assist you? Maybe Sardou? I’m sure I saw him just a minute ago.”

Gaume was hyperventilating by that point. His mouth was moving, but he was speaking so faintly that Mona wouldn’t hear what he was saying.

“What’s that? I’m sorry, Mr. Gaume. I can’t understand you. Please, speak up,” she said.

“Please,” Gaume choked out, “have mercy.”

Mona paused. Her smile faded and she looked at him blankly. “I apologize, Mr. Gaume. It seems I’ve given you the wrong impression of me.” She took the knife in her free hand and let the one holding the pistol fall to her side. She smiled again. “You see, mercy isn’t something I often practice.”

She lunged forward, snarling. Gaume raised his arms to protect himself, but she easily knocked them away with her left arm. The bullet wound in her shoulder screamed in agony; however, the pain only fueled the flames of her fury. Barring her bloody teeth, she raised the knife and shoved it into Gaume’s eye. He didn’t even have the opportunity to cry out before he was dead. His body slumped heavily against the wall; its limbs jerked and spasmed as she watched. Were it not for her knife, the body would’ve crumpled to the ground. Grunting, Mona jerked the knife. It came free with a wet sound on the third try. She slit the body’s throat for good measure, closing her eyes as blood gushed from the wide wound to drench her. The body collapsed to the ground and continued to bleed out for several long seconds. The blood pool spread large enough to wash over her feet and beyond.

Mona stood and watched the body bleed out. The exhilaration of killing Gaume had faded, leaving her filled with a faint buzzing that dulled to indifference. She sighed heavily. Her body nearly caved in on itself, but she held herself up. Her wounds were still open. They needed to be treated in the most basic sense, at the very least.

She looked around the room. Her gaze swept over the desk—taking note of its locked drawers and the closed laptop resting on top of it—but didn’t see anything resembling a medical kit. She turned to the door on the left side of the room. She strode over to it and opened it (there wasn’t a lock) to find a large, expensively decorated bedroom. A sweep of the bedroom gave her nothing to work with, so she tried the door at the back of the room. The door led to a well-sized, modernly decorated bathroom. Mona grimaced at the too-white surface. Everything from the tiles to the lights to the furniture was a gleaming, painful shade of white that practically glowed in the florescent lighting and stung her eyes. Mona took great satisfaction in trailing blood wherever she stepped or touched. She opened the cabinets, shoved things off the shelf, and rummaged through everything until she finally found a medical kit buried at the back of the lowest set of cabinets. She set it on the bathroom counter, walked back to the bedroom, and placed her weapons on the bed for safekeeping, though she kept a loaded pistol on the counter next to the kit.

She didn’t use the shower. A part of her needed this, needed the filth and grime of her own making to know in her mind that she was free and alive. So, she cleaned her wounds. She dug out the bullet lodged in her thigh and then bandaged her wounds with the supplies in the medical kit—She didn’t stitch herself up. She hadn’t stitched wounds in years and knew her work would be sloppy—and used a scotch glass to drink lukewarm water from the sink and wash down the painkillers so she wouldn’t have to wash the drying blood from her hands.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror several times and had to force her attention back to her work. It was strange being able to see herself after not doing so for god knew how long. That and she was covered in so much blood and grime she barely looked like a person let alone herself. She couldn’t see the brown of her skin or even the pink of her hair. The only feature she recognized was her eyes—nearly black, bottomless, and with a sharpness that reminded her of a shark. They were an interesting contrast against the roundness of her face, dimples, and constantly changing hair color. Eggsy once told her they reminded him of obsidian or of water at night, reflecting the moon’s glow across its slick black surface to enchant someone to jump in. Deathstick had just said they were creepy and to stop staring at him so much. She thought of both memories fondly.

After securing the bandages around her abdomen and shoulder, she tugged her filthy tank top back on and stared at herself in the mirror.

 _What next?_ She leaned heavily on the counter, blinking tiredly at her reflection. _Get home. Or at least figure out where you are._ She shuffled back through the bedroom. Briefly, she wondered if she should sleep for a bit to try and regain some energy but she knew she would never be able to sleep here, in Gaume’s bed in this building and especially not when nobody knew she was missing or where she was. So, she continued walking to the office. She propped herself on the doorway and examined the room again now that she was looking for something less specific. There was a framed map of the building on the wall across from her; the laptop might be of some use; Gaume most likely had a cellphone (with a passcode), car keys, and/or money in his pockets; she could use the paperclips to—

A satellite phone sat on Gaume’s desk, right next to the laptop. Mona stood there, staring at it unblinkingly with her mouth dropped open like a fool for several moments. She really couldn’t believe it was there. After everything . . . would it really be as easy as calling for help?

Mona walked over to the desk, through the now cold and congealing blood, and picked up the phone. She mouthed the numbers as she pressed them in. She thought of Eggsy—outrageously drunk, only stopping when Mona took the whiskey bottle from him, and crying most of the night away on her couch—when he’d told her, far graver and older than she’d ever seen him, that if there was ever an emergency, she was to call a set of numbers and tell the operator “Oxfords, not Brogues”.

She had hoped she would never need the sort of help Eggsy’s friends and coworkers would undoubtedly provide. And yet, here she was.

She almost didn’t press the call button. The part of her that had always solved her problems on her own told her to set the phone down . . . but Mona was so tired. She was covered in blood in various states of dryness. She’d been tortured, shot, and stabbed. She just wanted to go home. Her pride could fuck right off.

With a heavy sigh, she collapsed in Gaume’s ridiculously comfortable leather office chair, pressed the call button, and waited.

A woman answered the phone. “Customer complaints, how may I help you?”

Mona supposed that she should’ve been nervous but given the circumstances, she couldn’t find the energy. “I was told to call this number in case of an emergency.” She winced at how raspy her voice was. Her voice had been in bad shape before but the last session had really taken a toll. “I really don’t know how to . . .” _Explain this fucked up situation._

“Sorry, ma’am, wrong number,” the woman said.

“Oxfords, not Brogues!” Mona spat out, stumbling over the words.

There was silence from the other end of the line, and Mona feared that the woman had hung up. Finally, the woman asked, “What is the nature of your complaint?”

“I need to speak to Eggsy o-or Merlin,” she said quickly ( _That wasn’t what I meant to say_ ). The second name fell from her mouth before she could fully process it. She’d only heard it once. Again, from a drunk off his ass Eggsy but he’d been bubbly and happy then, proclaiming that “Merlin” knew everything about anything and could solve any problem. If Eggsy wasn’t back from his job, then perhaps this Merlin could help her.

“Your complaint has been noted. Please wait to be transferred.”

Too late to back out now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thefandomhoarder on tumblr, so come talk to me!


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